A number of computerized systems for generating cutting markers for fabric or board materials have been developed for increasing pattern piece density and thereby minimizing the waste of material. More advanced systems have been developed for addressing materials that have distinct patterns of surface topographies, such as embossments, channels, corrugations, or distinct visual patterns such as plaids, stripes, prints or other regularly repeating designs that may require a specific alignment of the patterned portion among two or more pattern pieces to produce an acceptable finished product. Consequently, some pattern piece density is typically sacrificed in order to obtain pattern pieces that will provide the desired design alignment.
With respect to materials including image patterns, particularly those having a regularly repeated design other than stripes or plaids, are produced by printing or transferring the design onto a suitable plain, unprinted material or a cover layer subsequently applied to the bulk material. Although rotary plate and silk-screen printing, or variations thereof, have long been used for this purpose, more recently the use of multiple, minute jets of appropriate inks, dyes or pigments in a process generally analogous to the widely used ink-jet paper printing process has become more common. Like ink-jet printing on paper, the jet printing of the plain material is performed under the control of a computer.
As disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 6,173,211 B1, a system has been developed for producing fabric pattern pieces in which the fabric design printed on each pattern piece can be arranged in a predetermined manner with respect to the boundaries of the various pieces, thereby reducing waste. As described, the pattern design is printed only within or slightly overlapping the boundaries of the pattern pieces, thereby avoiding the difficulty associated with aligning the various pattern pieces relative to a preprinted repeating design. This allows more compact nesting of the pattern pieces on the work material.
The graphical images corresponding to the repeating portion of the design, may be generated and combined individually with pattern piece templates. The pattern piece templates may then be arranged in a nested relation without regard to the pattern to establish cutting and printing markers that will produce the desired finished pattern pieces. The cutting and printing markers may then be used to control a cutter for cutting the pattern pieces from the base fabric and a printer for printing the desired designs onto the base fabric in those areas that correspond to the pattern pieces.